


living in your letters

by aactionjohnny



Series: Kite & Mito [2]
Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: F/M, Long-Distance Relationship, Love Letters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-22 13:27:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13765122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aactionjohnny/pseuds/aactionjohnny
Summary: Kite has left Whale Island to continue searching for Ging, after a brief affair with Mito. The two promise to stay in touch.





	1. Ahead of ourselves

When they said goodbye it was a windy day. Gon’s arms were wrapped around his legs, so tight, so strong. He was so full of affection, as if making up for his father. Ging only spared Kite so much as a pat on the back.

  
“Promise you’ll come back!” Gon pleaded into the fabric of his pants. “Or me and Mito-san will be sad.”

  
“I will.” _He will, he will._ He’d whispered that promise to Mito the night prior, into her reddened ear as his hands traces her gentle curves, usually so drowned in her matronly clothes. But he’d learned better, the sin beneath.

  
She looked at him through her hair, whipping in the breeze. She always seemed to be eroding in the wind. He always seemed to be blowing away. She kissed him to the sound of Gon’s boyish giggling, and Kite smiled against her lips.

“Write to me,” she pleaded. “Or I’ll think you’re cruel again.” She spared Gon their foul language. _You asshole, you make me like you and you leave..._  
He’d get a journal. He’d rip the pages out like clothes from her body.

He didn’t look back as his chartered boat sailed away. Her eyes might make him jump into the water, Gon’s tears might make him ache in the chest. That boy...he’d made other promises. _I want to help you. I want to see you both again, and carry him on my shoulders_... He didn’t look back. He held fast onto the bow and got his sea legs slowly.

-

His first stop on the mainland was a shanty town much like his old home. He’d never noticed how many people held hands in the streets. It distracted him from the clues. _Have you seen a man with messy hair? He looks like someone who’d leave behind a sweet child. He looks like his cousin could be beautiful._ Kite found little in the way of a trail. But he persisted, delving deep. When he rested it was in alleys or cheap motels, the places he’d usually drag some near-stranger, both of them grinning in drunken lust, to fuck like the animals he studied. This leg of the journey was different. He found pleasure only in fantasy. Coming back to that isolated place with flowers in his arms, Mito falling to her knees in appreciation. Her mouth was always soft, warm, wet. In his dreams she always gasped, apologized. _It’s much too big!_ It was. When he’d pressed her against that wall in her home she’d gripped the molding and winced. It’s okay, it’s okay, just put it in. He fell asleep with one hand down his pants most nights on this trip. He always wrote his letters in the morning.

_Mito._

_It’s like Ging knows what we did. He’s being even more elusive, it feels like. He’s hiding because he can’t look me in the eyes anymore. He’ll see it on my face, won’t he? That I spent two perfect nights with a perfect girl._  
I won’t fuck anyone else if you don’t either. Don’t you miss it? It misses you.  
Now that the dirty part’s out of the way, I can ask about Gon. Don’t let him read these letters or he won’t like me so much anymore.  
I’m sure when I come back he’ll be taller. He’ll have more stories to tell me. He’ll have done more stupid shit that you’ll scold him for.

_Yours, somehow,_

_Kite._

He wrote more drafts. _I can’t stop thinking about the sight of you. My mouth feels empty._ But they all got tucked away in his bag, sparing her innocence. Gon was too curious a boy as to not ask why her face was flushed and her toes curling. Kite kept the drafts for lonesome nights.

  
He mailed the letter after coffee. The postman asked him who it was for.  
“A girl.”  
“Your lady love?”  
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

The afternoon met him with clues. A trail, a scent to pick up on. It led him toward the desert, a place to make his thirst stronger. His mouth felt so empty.


	2. Stationary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mito receives Kite’s first letter.

As his boat disappeared beyond the rolling waves, this began the hurt. It wasn’t quite like heartache. Not yet. It was a dull pain at the meeting of her thighs and behind the walls of her chest. That little boy could tell, even if he knew nothing.  
“Mito-san must miss Kite a lot...” As they held hands on their way back from the beach, the market, most days. It shown on her face despite how she smiled. He’d put something on her skin with his touch. Now she was bereft of it, like stripped cuticle. She dusted the guest room far too often, like trying to rid it of his scent. Ash, and leaf. Black coffee. “It’s alright, Gon. I don’t know him very well,” she’d tell him, patting down that wild hair. But she knew enough. She knew his bare chest and his skinny arms, so strong. She knew his kisses and his tongue. She knew how it hurt in such a good way, and that his eyes were bright even beneath the brim of his hat.

“Is Kite gonna come back and be my dad?”  
She nearly spat her wine across the room. She’d started drinking now and then, like it could ease sensation, could numb her want for a man so far away. It was silly, she told herself, infatuation.   
“Gon...what makes you ask something so crazy?” As she wiped white wine from her lips.  
“I figure...” He pushed his toy across the carpet. “If Mito-san is so tired, and she likes Kite, and my dad went away...”   
She could tell when he felt foolish, and so she sank from her chair to sit beside him on the floor, hands on his shoulders.  
“I don’t mind being a little tired for your sake, Gon.” She kissed his crown, helping him push that wooden train along. “Kite is very busy, I can’t ask him to...to do that, even if he cares for you very much.”

Weeks went by and the questions died down. He stopped wondering, some new childish obsession taking over. Mito began to think she’d been forgotten. She didn’t blame him, not really. A man like Kite had many ports in so many frequent storms. At least she enjoyed herself. At least she’d been so expertly touched. At least she felt hollowed out by him, like he was missing from inside her.  
But the mail still came. Every day but Sunday. On Monday she received a tattered envelope with no return address but “Kite, somewhere else.” Her chest ached as she tore it open, read the letter once, twice, eight times, each round falling farther into the wall in love and wanting, until she slid down to the floor, a hand over her mouth, crying.  
Hardly sad or overjoyed, just...overcome. She scampered to her feet and into her bedroom.  
She couldn’t write at first, just laid in bed with the letter pressed to her breast. So beloved and treated so well by him. Once her heart beat settled, she scrounged for stationary.

_Kite._

_I thought you’d forgotten about me. I must have made an impression those nights. You certainly did. I keep waking up rolling about in bed, like a fit. You’ve filled my dreams._   
_Gon misses you. He wants a father, Kite. It’s so silly. And it’s cruel of me to even think of asking that of you. We only had two nights together, and you have places to be. But he just adores you._   
_But I agree. I won’t be with anyone else._   
_But I won’t wait forever. You’d better come back, mister! Now that I know I can make a man make those noises, I can’t waste it on carrying a torch. Not for too long. Maybe that will inspire to to hurry up and find my cousin already!_   
_When you do find Ging, tell him you wore his clothes. Tell him I said you’re a fine man._

_Faithful for now,_

_Your Mito._

She found herself cruel, but justified. Desperate for him, maybe. She took Gon’s little drawing, the three of them at the beach, and put it in the envelope, sealed tight for the boy to take to the post. She kissed the paper like she might his cheek.

“How do you know where to send it to?” Gon asked.  
“I don’t.” She would take her chances. She knew Ging well, knew how he might hide. She believed in fate like a fool. The letter would find him if it was meant to. She addressed it: Kite, he’s tall, he’s the moon personified. The Hunter Association HQ in Yorknew. He had to go there some time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SLAMS THIS DOWN ON YOUR DESK


	3. Part-time lovers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kite returns to Yorknew. Their letters take on a lustier tone, and he starts feeling something he'd never thought possible.

The desert was unkind as ever, and it led him back to a place he’d already been, gnashing his teeth and clenching his fists. Kite could not despise his master, though he was so cruel. Leading him away until his feet ached and his will withered. But he had to keep going. Despite the agony, despite the frustration, he felt he was getting closer.

At least, he thought, the journey led him to civilization this time. Yorknew, with its tall buildings and soft beds. Its nightlife and its opulence. Kite would normally take advantage of all that decadent pleasure, were he not...whatever they were calling it. He was not in love. Or, he did not know what that was supposed to feel like.

He was simply tethered to a place that seemed to get farther and farther away no matter where he journeyed.

There was a message for him at HQ. Cryptic and vague, he spent hours decoding in his little room. He ordered no food nor drink, instead practicing his  _ nen _ to ease his mind, to distract from the impossible clues. His next trial would be his greatest, he could tell.

Deep in his own aura, expanding it to the thin walls and across the tacky carpet, he hardly noticed the sound of the mail slot opening, falling closed, the sound of her little letter hitting the floor like a feather from the sky. Light and airy, like her laugh.

Tired, sweating from exertion, he softened, sighed, and noticed the letter.

God, how she toyed with him. His urgency seemed to increase tenfold, reading she wouldn’t wait for him forever. How cruel, to keep herself a prize for him, a limited offer, a taunt. But there were fewer better motivations than that. A lech he still was, even if he was sweet on her. His fingers crinkled the paper to think of her with some other man. No one could be as good. No one could make her little lungs heave and her pale throat squeal. Only he could make her seap such sweetness down his skinny leg.  _ God, Kite, I’m--  _ It rang in his head even after all these months. 

He had to hurry. He had to find his teacher and try with all his might not to tell him,  _ Ging-san, your cousin, she’s made me weak. Your son, he’s stolen my care _ .

He wrote her back feverishly, cheeks flushed and with a stirring at the meeting of his thighs. His letter grew more fierce and lonesome.

 

_ Mito. _

 

_ You’re as mean as you are sweet. Save it for me. I can still feel your pussy on my tongue. If you give that to anyone else my heart will break. Do you know how many people out here would fall at my feet? I’ve said no to every single one. Save it for me. _

_ I’m getting closer. I’ll keep on going just to prove it to you. _

_ I know it was just one time. I know it was quick and rough and dirty, and that I came on the small of your back like it didn’t matter. But lately I dream of it being slow and sweet. I want to explore you like I explore the world. I want to kiss you on your porch in the moonlight again and again. _

_ I want to come back. I’ll always leave again; it’s just my way. I want to come back and hold you, and teach Gon everything I know about life and the world. Like I came inside you, like we share a child.  _

_ It’s the only thing that has me. You own me with your touch. You’ve done such strange things to me. _

_ Holding out for you, _

_ Kite. _

 

He oughtn’t have sent it, he thought, as he dropped it into the HQ’s outgoing mailbox. It was too kind and too committed. Did he mean it, he wondered. Did he mean it or was he so full of desire that he formed a lie in his head? To come back to one place, to have a part-time home and a part-time son and a part-time lover...even this seemed to him too stagnant.

Maybe she’d understand. Maybe she’d let him out of her arms to feed his wanderlust.

 

His next trial would be his greatest and his coldest, braving the snowy mountains. He could feel the frostbite already.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (wipes sweat from brow)


	4. souvenirs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mito anxiously awaits more correspondence from Kite, and finds herself falling into a deep love.

Her nails were chewed down to the skin. She was never such an anxious woman until him. Her grandmother scoffed and shook her head so often.

“You hardly know the man,” she’d scold.

“You don’t understand.” No one could. No one else looked into his dark eyes and came.

“I understand well enough. He’ll not make a good husband.”

“Who says that’s what I want?” she snapped, eyes narrowing at the old woman. As if she even knew what she wanted.

“Men leave, honey.” Her grandmother stood and hobbled over to the window, looking out at the horizon like she could see so many men traversing the grassy field. “Your grandfather, and Ging. Gon will leave you someday, too. This man isn’t any different just because he showed you a good time--”

She stopped her lecturing  when she heard Mito’s tears. Her knees bent up to her chest, her face buried between them.

“I know it’s stupid, grandmother…” It was foolish, to keep waiting for his letters, believing the things he said. For all she knew he could be drowning in the wiles of other women, keeping her on his back burner for whenever he wanted to stop by-- “Y-you don’t think he can really love me?” She felt like a silly schoolgirl, then. There were more important things.

“Child…” The old woman surrounded Mito’s face with her wrinkled hands. “He should. You’re a treasure, my little girl.” Her chapped lips pressed to Mito’s furrowed brow. “I just don’t want your heart to break.”

They held fast onto one another for a moment, Mito stifling her tears in favor of sighing into her grandmother’s shoulder. It was quiet, then, until the door burst open and Gon came in, tracking mud into the foyer as he kicked off his boots.

“Mito-san! Mito-san!” He barrelled into the room clutching a little white envelope, already torn open. She panicked, knowing Kite’s letters to be...vivid. If the boy were to read them he’d have questions upon questions, and maybe no longer would he look up to the man-- but Gon placed the letter in her lap, paper still neatly folded. He was instead carrying a little keychain, swinging it from his pointer finger. “Mr. Kite sent me a souv….souvi--”

“A souvenir, Gon,” Mito corrected, running her fingers down the little charm. There was a little note attached,  _ for Gon _ , and the keychain was in the shape of a fish. How sweet… “He must be thinking of you, darling.”

“I told Mr. Kite that when he comes back we have to go fishing together, and he remembered!” The boy held the keychain close to his chest, bouncing on his heels, cheeks flushed in some unfamiliar love. “I think the letter is for you, Mito-san. I didn’t read it just in case it’s about kissing and other gross stuff.” With an impish laugh, he disappeared up to his bedroom, bounding up the stairs, unaware of the look of sheer horror on Mito’s face.

Her grandmother smiled knowingly and teetered out of the room.

“I never said I knew everything, dear.”

 

Mito sealed herself into the guest room to read it; still she searched for his scent there. She laid down on the bed where first they’d touched, knees bent the same, toes curling the same, and she read his sordid note. A fury seemed to overtake her, suddenly so worried that she’d be too late, that he’d find someone else, that he’d scorn her for claiming she wouldn’t wait forever.

She realized then what a lie that had been. She’d turn to dust before giving up on his return.

She decided to be honest, to tell him every dear little thing on her mind.

 

_ Kite, cruel and handsome. _

 

_ I’d think you sweet if you didn’t make me angry so. On top of leaving, you have me worried for your life. Ging doesn’t care for the safety of others. He’ll lead you right to your death and you’ll never get to come back and tell me how you love me. _

_ Gon adored the gift you sent him. He adores you as I do. Is it truly so foolish to feel that way after so short a time? They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but my heart just aches. For yours. There is so much we did not get to talk about. We were too busy. _

_ I don’t have any gift to send you but my truth. I think I loved you from the first moment. You walked into my home looking like a homeless idiot, and I loved you. If that makes me stupid, then I’m stupid. You’re an idiot, too, if you don’t come back. The road might bring you a lot of pleasure but no one can say they love you as I do. That’s selfish of me, I know. But you make me feel like I can be a little selfish. _

 

_ All of my heart, _

 

_ Your Mito. _

 

The page became stained with soft tears. It hurt to admit that she longed so for him, and not just his touch and his kiss. His voice, his arms, his laugh. The sight of him, an arm around her, an arm around Gon. Her crying must have been quite loud, for the door creaked open and that sweet little boy peaked in.

“Mito-san...are you worried about Mr. Kite?”

She nodded, sniffing back any sobs that threatened her.

“He’s gonna be fine!” Gon hopped onto the bed beside her. “He saved my life, he can save his own life! He’s so strong, and cool, and he likes Mito-san so much!” There was a sad tone in his voice, like he knew the contrast. Knew his father lacked the feelings to keep him home. 

“You’re right, Gon-chan.” She folded the letter and placed it on the nightstand to be sent later, and wrapped both arms around the boy. “I bet he’s out there being so brave! I bet he’s going to...to complete his quest.”

“...when he finds my dad, will he bring him back here?”

Mito sighed. So unpredictable, her cousin was. About everything else, at least.

“I don’t know. He’ll tell him how big and strong you’ve gotten.”

“Will he tell him he loves Mito-san and that he wants to get married?”

“Gon-chan!” she admonished him gently. “He’s never said such a thing.”

“Okay.” So easily pleased he was, he grinned anew, squeezing Mito around the waist and kicking his feet against the boxspring. 

 

A cold wind blew against the windows of the house. The winters on Whale Island were brief, but dreary. The rest of the world was already cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >:)


	5. Two Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kite wanders the cold wilderness, his thoughts all focused on Mito.

The thing about walking in the snow was that there was no horizon. The sun shone all day, and the expanse was a pure, swirling white. But the legend spoke of ruins in the distance, and all clues pointed to that ancient place. Ging, though cryptic, rarely left him red herrings anymore. That, or Kite had grown too wise for them. The lessons never really ended, did they?

He wrote letters in his head. _Dearest Mito, to feel your warm hands would make me smile._ His fingers hurt far too much in the freezing cold to write with a pen, so he planned. He felt a little insane, mumbling to himself against the howling wind. _Darling, I’ve seen so many women and none of them have I loved._

And he did love her. He realized it after weeks without her letters. If she wrote them, he knew it not. And he had no way to tell her, no carrier bird, no mail. The only civilization he came across was so foreign, they knew not how to listen to him. But they were kind, and let him stay. He was warm for one night, by a fire, dreaming

In this dream she kissed him, and he cried such rare tears. How strange; he never did that. Not for anyone. He woke up dry, and needy, and panting for her touch. He had to go. He had to leave. He had to return to her. Maybe in the night, maybe silent, slipping beneath her sheets, long arms crawling that perfect little shape.

Did he idealize her? Maybe. But he’d met, stayed with, and left plenty of pretty women, and on them his thoughts never lingered. But sweet Mito, panting in his arms. Sweet Mito, kissing his hooked nose as if it was some prize. She filled in the spaces in his head. He’d never felt so busy. He left the little village without a word, hair, cloak, billowing like the wind, and he was just as fleeting.

There were so few places where he wanted to be permanent. One bed, one flushed cheek. But he was stuck in the cold, dead void of constant winter.

It truly was endless.

He slowly lost the feeling in his toes. They curled only to make sure they were still present. His nose, kissed only by the snow, it numbed. His fingers, long and sinewy, turning blue. They had felt her, once. She was warm. It was getting warm...finally, like a cocoon, the snow. He’d lay down only a while. He’d rest and dream and enjoy this warmth, like a guest bed, like hot coffee.

He had his best dream there. He was coming back, he almost called it coming home. He opened the door from the windy winter into her welcoming hearth and her open arms. He was weak from the journey, and she nursed him, laid warm cloth to his forehead, kissed him better everywhere that it hurt. She laid beside him, pleasured him, whispered to him by the fire. He tasted her again, sweet skin. Nursing like a babe, starved. Everything was warm and white, like when the sun’s too strong.

She was too much brightness for him not to love her. He told her in that dream, and she said _silly man, of course you do._

He smiled in his sleep. He was home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BOI

**Author's Note:**

> Literally one person said they’d read more of this ship and that was enough for me to wanna write them again. More to come! Thank you for reading and comments are appreciated. For background info read my one-shot “sometimes, the sea breeze.”


End file.
